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Have AC Milan stopped the bleeding? It’s been a difficult start to 2023 for the defending Scudetto champions. In fact, the Rossoneri have only picked up two wins since the World Cup, first against Salernitana way back on January 4th, their first game back after the break and then against Torino on Friday. In the interim the drew against AS Roma and Lecce and lost against Lazio, Sassuolo and Inter Milan. Stefano Pioli’s boys also lost against Torino in the Coppa Italia’s round of 16 and against Inter Milan the Supercoppa Italiana’s final in Riyadh. But after this nightmare stretch, it seems there might be some daylight at the end of the tunnel, ahead of their round of 16 Champions League match against Tottenham (catch all the action only on Paramount+).
The negative results are obvious for everybody to see, but recently Pioli decided to make a major change and play with a three-man center defense for the first time since he took over the team in 2019. He debuted the new look against Inter Milan in a 1-0 defeat in the Derby della Madonnina. However, despite losing the game, the Rossoneri showed more defensive solidity compared to the previous three matches where they’d conceded a combined 12 goals. They repeated the new tactical system against Torino and won 1-0 thanks to an Olivier Giroud header. AC Milan are still far from being back in a decent form, but there are the first signals of recovery after such a difficult moment.
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There are two reasons that can explain why Pioli’s team seem to be responding well to the tactical change. First of all they are playing with one more center back and that can help the team for all the obvious reasons. This was a side suffering in that particular part of the field due, in part, to individual mistakes. Fikayo Tomori and Simon Kjaer are not playing at their best and the implementation of another player that can assist them is helping the whole team. Also, Theo Hernandez can play as a winger in the 3-5-2 and this is definitely something that can only improve his performances. In fact, he already delivered one assist to Olivier Giroud for the winning goal against Torino last Friday, while he failed to do so in the past six games (the last one was against Monza on October 22).
Interestingly, the change in formation hasn’t impacted how Theo Hernandez approaches the game on the pitch. He still gets to do all the attacking things he excels at, now that way of playing is much supported now by a new defensive setting which provides him more cover. What is interesting to see is how this change is affecting Rafael Leao’s position. It’s too early to have a clear explanation for the thinking behind Pioli’s change and how it can affect the performances of the Portuguese attacker, but looking at his position on the pitch, he’s now asked more frequently to come and work on the ball when the action is starting, rather than being isolated on the left wing as he was before, waiting to be called in when the team needed to finish the action.
As the heat map below shows, before the formation change, Leao stayed reliably high and wide.
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In the last two matches, it’s easy to see how Leao has been dropping back and coming more central in addition to his usual touches.
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The question now is that if this can help the player’s performances or not. Leao is clearly a budding superstar, but Milan have also been very careful with his development. He’s grown into most decisive player in the roster but he will still need to adapt to the new system. If Theo Hernandez didn’t really change his way of playing, but he’s much more supported now by the defense and more free to attack, Rafael Leao still needs to adapt to the new role in the 3-5-2 where he is basically operating as a striker playing alongside Olivier Giroud.
When Milan face Tottenham in the Champions League’s Round of 16 on Tuesday this will be another test to their new tactical system. The Rossoneri will play against Antonio Conte’s team, with the former Inter Milan coach being one of the most influential managers that brought the back three defensive system back into vogue in the last decade of European soccer. In fact, there is no better game to test if this new tactical system can work or not in the coming weeks.